Distinguished Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar
Sahar Aziz is distinguished professor of law, Middle East Legal Studies Scholar, and Chancellor’s Social justice Scholar at Rutgers University Law School. Professor Aziz’s scholarship examines the intersection of national security, race, religion, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security laws and policies on racial, religious, and ethnic minorities. She is the author of the book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom and the founding director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights. Professor Aziz was a visiting professor at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and School of Public and International Affairs. She was also a visiting scholar at Columbia University Center for Gender and Sexuality Law
Professor Aziz has published over thirty-five academic articles and book chapters. Her articles are published in the Harvard National Security Journal, Washington and Lee Law Review, Nebraska Law Review, George Washington International Law Review, Penn State Law Review, and the Texas Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Journal. Her groundbreaking book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom examines how religious bigotry racializes immigrant Muslims through a historical and comparative approach. Her second book, Global Islamophobia in an Era of Populism (co-edited with John Esposito), convenes internationally known scholars to examine the convergence of Islamophobia and right wing populism in North America, Europe and Asia.
Professor Aziz’s commentary has appeared in the New York Times, CNN.com, Carnegie Endowment’s Sada Journal, Middle East Institute, Foxnews.com, World Politics Review, Houston Chronicle, Austin Statesmen, The Guardian, and Christian Science Monitor. She is a frequent public speaker and has appeared on CNN, BBC World, PBS, CSPAN, MSNBC, Fox News, Black News Channel, and Al Jazeera English. She is an editor of the Race and the Law Profs blog. She previously served on the board of the ACLU of Texas and as a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution – Doha. She currently serves on the board of directors of ReThink Media, the Project on Democracy in the Middle East (POMED), and Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN).
Prior to joining legal academia, Professor Aziz served as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where she worked on law and policy at the intersection of national security and civil liberties. Professor Aziz began her legal career as a litigation associate for WilmerHale after which she was an associate at Cohen Milstein Sellers and Toll PLLP in Washington, D.C. where she litigated Title VII class actions on behalf of plaintiffs.
Professor Aziz earned a J.D. and M.A. in Middle East Studies from the University of Texas where she served as an associate editor of the Texas Law Review. Professor Aziz clerked for the Honorable Andre M. Davis on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
Awards and Recognitions
Soros Equality Fellow, Open Society Foundation (2021)
Kleh Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Law, Boston University School of Law (2021)
Middle Eastern and North African American National Security and Foreign Policy Next Generation Leader, New America (2020)
Research Making an Impact Award, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (2017)
Derrick Bell Award, American Association of Law Schools (2015)
Emerging Scholar, Diverse Issues in Higher Education (2015)
Rose Nader Award, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (2015)
Service Award, Texas A&M Law Review (2015)Sahar Aziz Author, Professor, and Advocate
Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (2011)
Patriot Award, Bill of Rights Defense Committee (2010)
Affiliations
Life Fellow, American Bar Foundation (ABF)
Chair, International Law Section, Association of American Law Schools (2024)
Chair, Islamic Law and Society Committee, American Branch of International Law Association (ABILA)
Editor, Arab Law Quarterly
Editor, International Journal of Middle East Studies
Research Advisory Committee, United States Institute for Peace (USIP) (2018-2022)
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, New Jersey State Advisory Council (2017-2021)
Diversity Committee, Law and Society Association (LSA) (2020-2021)
Fellow, Rutgers University Leadership Academy (2019-2020)
Fellow, Rutgers University Institute for Research on Women (2019-2020)
Executive Committee, Minority Law Section, Association of American Law Schools (2017-2019)
President, Egyptian American Rule of Law Association (EARLA) (2011-2019)
Co-Chair, Islamic Law Section, Association of American Law Schools (2015)
Books
The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom (University of California Press 2022)
Global Islamophobia in an Era of Populism (eds. Sahar Aziz and John L. Esposito) (Oxford University Press 2024)
Select Academic Articles
Race, Entrapment and Manufacturing “Homegrown Terrorism, 3 Georgetown L. J. 381 (2023)
State Sponsored Radicalization, 27 Mich. J. Race & L. 125 (2021)
Reflections on Security, Race and Rights Twenty Years After 9/11, 12 J. Nat’l Sec. L. 135 (2021)
Fear of a Black and Brown Internet: Policing Online Activism, 100 Boston U. L. Rev. 1153 (2020) (co-author Khaled Beydoun)
The Authoritarianization of U.S. Counterterrorism, 75 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1573 (2018)
A Muslim Registry: The Precursor to Internment?, 2018 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 101 (2018)
Losing the “War of Ideas:” A Critique of Countering Violent Extremism Programs, 52 Tex. Int’l L. J. 255 (2017)
Rethinking Counterterrorism in the Age of ISIS: Lessons from Sinai, 95 Neb. L. Rev. 307 (2016)
Independence without Accountability: The Judicial Paradox of Egypt’s Failed Transition to Democracy, 120 Penn State. L. Rev. 1 (2016)
Coercive Assimilationism: The Perils of Muslim Women’s Identity Performance in the Workplace, 20 Mich. J. Race & L. 1 (2014)
Policing Terrorists in the Community, 5 Harvard Nat’l Sec. J. 147 (2014)
From the Oppressed to the Terrorist: Muslim American Women in the Crosshairs of Intersectionality, 9 Hastings Race & Pov. L. J. 191 (2012)
